cordova plugins

A Cordova plugin bridges a bit of functionality between the WebView powering a Cordova application and the native platform the Cordova application is running on. Plugins are composed of a single JavaScript interface used across all platforms, and native implementations following platform-specific Plugin interfaces that the JavaScript will call into.

Designing hybrid apps can be difficult. The challenge is to use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build apps that feel at home on multiple mobile platforms with different UI paradigms. As hybrid developers we often argue over the merit of replicating native UIs in JavaScript, and toss around phrases like the uncanny valley effect, but we frequently overlook the fact that Cordova gives us access to native OS UI components directly.